911 outage affects county

Jul 22, 2013

On Friday, July 19, a press release from the Washington County Communications Center said there was a 911 outage affecting most of the State of Iowa. Residents who couldn’t reach their local sheriff’s office through the 911 systems were advised to use the local number for the sheriff’s department.On Saturday, July 20, Iowa’s 911 system was working again after a problem that routed some calls to out-of-town call centers. The greatest effect was on 911 calls made from cell phones.David Lingren, executive director of the Iowa Communications Network, says the problem stemmed from faulty equipment in the state-owned fiber-optic system. A vendor tried to install new software to fix the problem, but that worsened the situation.A backup system also failed to activate.After working all night, Lingren says most of the system was operating normally by Saturday morning.The Associated Press contributed to this news brief. Washington Communications Center supervisor Kara Sorrells could not be reached for comment.